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No Need For Trek Anymore
dcsmith writes "In an article at the LA Times, Orson Scott Card says 'So they've gone and killed Star Trek. And it's about time.' SciFi blasphemy? Not really. Card makes several good observations about the growth of SciFi over the past 30+ years. The article also comments on several other genre gems, including Joss Whedon's Firefly." From the article: "...the hungry fans called their friends and they watched it faithfully. They memorized the episodes. I swear I've heard of people who quit their jobs and moved just so they could live in a city that had Star Trek running every day."
Enraged Trekkie __________ attacked Orson Scott Card today and beat him senseless with a 1960s-vintage officially licensed Star Trek (tm) phaser. Other trekkies soon arrived in mass and quickly stoned the defenseless Card to death with their DVD box sets of TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise.
Card had made the mistake of making comments in a Los Angles Times op-ed piece about the Star Trek franchise that did not deify all people ever involved in the series, including bit-part actors who barely had speaking parts. He even went so far as to suggest that perhaps Star Trek was not the best TV series of all time.
"He made some good points in the article," said a fellow sci-fi writer who feared for his life and did not want to be identified. "Too bad he had to make them about Star Trek. I'll miss him."
I wasn't sure if it was OK for me to not like Star Trek anymore. If it wasn't for Card telling me what to think I would probably never make up my mind.
In summary, he states that Trek has always sucked, Roddenberry was a hack, and the Klingon language is stupid. I've got some tar over here, anyone else got some feathers?
:-/
Honestly, it's great that he doesn't like Star Trek. I'm happy for him. Really. But not everyone is looking to have their heads messed with when they watch Science Fiction. They don't necessary need to find the "deeper connection", "reveal the hidden truths", or "find another plain of existence". Sometimes people are happy addressing issues that are relevant today rather than issues from some dysotopian future. Star Trek did that. It used allegories (e.g. Klingons == Russians) and analogous situations (e.g. A Private Little War) to help put current issues into perspective. In addition, Roddenberry made Star Trek nothing more than a canvas for far more experienced writers to make their points.
In short, people loved Star Trek because it was both thought provoking and accessable to people who aren't interested in "hardcore sci-fi" visions of the future.
Side Note: Has anyone ever noticed that when Star Trek addresses a topic that some find to be a repulsive trait of hardcore Sci-Fi (e.g. telepaths), the blow is somehow softened to where the concept is easy to accept? Perhaps there's even more missing than Mr. Card realizes.
"I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration." -Orson Scott Card
Well, that explains everything.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Star Trek gave many people a vision of a future much more peaceful and prosperous than the present day, and awakened who knows how many minds to the potential and wonder of the universe and science. I'm in the sciences today because of it.
The hope that tomorrow can be better than today is what keeps all people going. Star Trek really connected with people on a level I've rarely seen.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Everythings become so staid or stupid in StarTrek. They need to get name authors to pen plotlines if they ever want to do Trek again. Perhaps if they set everything in the Mirror Universe, it would be good. Afterall, how many TV series set out to be evil all the time?
Who would have thought Star Trek would outlive Star Wars?
Through-line series like Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Alfred Gough's and Miles Millar's "Smallville" have raised our expectations of what episodic sci-fi and fantasy ought to be.
Fantasy, yes... science fiction, no.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Card is an excellent writer - his Ender character is immortal, and the writing is some of the best in the genre of his contemporaries. But outside of his own novels, who cares what he thinks about anything else? For example, he's an insane Christian homophobe. That doesn't affect his SF writing, but it does impugn his judgment about "society", even the place of the writing of others in society.
--
make install -not war
The problem though comes from a friend who doesn't have the money for cable or Satelite. Unless NBC starts carrying BattleStar Galactica, Enterprise is the ONLY current BROADCAST space-opera style sci-fi. When you consider that there will always be a younger generation of kids discovering science fiction for the first time, space opera still has a place. Maybe not Star Trek- which is particularily bad space opera- but space opera all the same.
With Firefly and Enterprise canceled- and fewer stations than ever before carrying the syndicated version of Stargate and Andromeda (the second of which I'm sure Mr. Card would say suffers from the Roddenberry curse) what can step up to take the hole?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The worst stuff just drags on and on, rehashing the same tired prejudices and routines with regularity until it's mercifully cancelled. You're not normally supposed to hate the protagonists and root for the end of humanity by raging alien hordes, but each Star Trek has gotten better at inspiring this kind of "hope".
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
Part of what makes this country great is the (unfortunately declining) encouragement to tolerate people that are wrong. The alternative is worse.
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
It's puzzling, to me, that Card (a writer whom I respect greatly, BTW) spends his entire column arguing that the "Star Trek" series(es) should be cancelled because ST:TOS was a bad show.
Why should that even matter? ST:TNG was (by the third season, anyway) a far better series, and DS9 was better still, despite stealing ideas left and right from "Babylon 5". It's the last twenty years of Trek that's being cancelled, not the first three.
Postscript: Now we finally have first-rate science fiction film and television that are every bit as good as anything going on in print. If only....
The problem is the same as actors blabbing about stuff you think is stupid: it makes it harder for you to concentrate on their major work. Once I knew that Tom Cruise was a $ceintologist, it made it damn hard to sit through a his movies without thinking "gee, he thinks the souls of dead aliens makes us do bad things"... the same for Card. It's now hard to read a book, knowing he's so kookie, and not be distracted by it.
And, there's the whole I don't want to support his bullshit views (by helping to make him rich).
I'll admit, this might not be a problem for everyone, but it is for me.
In short, people loved Star Trek because it WAS both thought provoking and accessable to people who aren't interested in "hardcore sci-fi" visions of the future.
Emphasis on the WAS.
The problem here is too many people view Trek as one big, indivisible thing. It's not. You can't have a rational conversation about "Trek is Good" or "Trek is Bad". Some Trek was good. The current state of Trek is bad.
The worst thing that can happen to a piece of Sci Fi is for it to become commercially successful. The more commercially successful something is, the greater the temptation to extend the franchise just for the sake of profit. The more money a franchise is worth, the lower you can set your creative standards and still justify releasing a product.
Why do half of the Star Trek movies suck? Because PAramount wanted to make a Star Trek movie, regardless of whether the script was any good. Sometimes they got good scripts, sometimes they didn't. But the people who get to decide whether a Star Trek movie should get made don't make that decision on whether the script is going to produce a good movie. They make that decision based on whether money in will be greater than money out.
The Original Series was a ground-breaking series that only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Next Generation only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Star Trek XXXVJWII, Voyager, and Enterprise was made because if Paramount didn't churn out new Trek they'd be wasting this huge, profitable sci fi franchise they'd built.
That can't go on forever though - eventually you produce so much crap just for the sake of making a buck that your franchise becomes worthless.
Unprofitable or New Sci Fi will only happen if it's good. Profitable Sci Fi will happen REGARDLESS of whether it's good.
If Star Trek hadn't been successful, it would have died after DS9 or earlier, and we'd all still think Trek is Good. But it didn't. But new trek being bad doesn't make old trek any less good.
paintball
That's the exact opposite of what the article was claiming. He says that Star Trek sucked from the beginning, but it was the only sci-fi most people knew for generations (because they didn't read). Now that decent sci-fi is starting to come into its own (ex: Firefly), Star Trek can actually die.
OMFG!! I can't believe you played the Orson Scott Card!!!
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
I'm no trekkie, but that's one thing that I noticed Card didn't mention a word about: original Trek was very progressive for television of the time. In fact, during the original pilot, the first mate of the ship was a female spock-like character called "number one" (they never gave her a name), who had better knowlege of the ship than the captain, in a uniform similar to that of the men. NBC ordered her cut because audiences wouldn't be able to identify with a powerful woman. Even Uhura, who made it into the show, was a pretty impressive step - a high ranking, non-submissive, black female officer was something you didn't see much of at the time. As for racism, a quick look at the bridge of original trek speaks wonders for its progressive view at the time.
It's a Cyrillic alphabet. It's like all those keys you never push on a calculator.
Homer is great because he captured Greek culture and managed to pass down to posterity a story that express the goals, hopes and dreams of that culture. The Illiad is the closest the Greeks have to a Bible, and it is brilliant.
Perhaps you read a bad translation. Try Lattimore. You might also want to try a good commentary (although, I haven't used this particular one). For other suggestions on what else you might read to really appreciate Homer, try The New Lifetime Reading Plan which suggests good translations and sources for literary criticism, historical background, and other information.The New Lifetime Reading Plan is - without question - the most important book I have ever owned. It can help you to appreciate Homer just at it helped me to read what I thought was unreadable - James Joyces' Ulysses. The key tip is that Ulysses should be read with the help of Stuart Gilbert.
As geeks, we LOVED Card because he wrote about Ender Wiggin; a very bright young boy who could not get along with his peers because of his intellectual capacity. C'mon, this is Slashdot. If you read Slashdot, and you've read Ender's Game, you identified with Ender to some extent.
We all like to believe that we are special. Geeks like to believe they are smarter than the average person. Is it so crazy to believe that maybe it wasn't Card's extraordinary writing and plot that made Ender's Game so popular -- perhaps it was because Ender's Game was the ultimate braniac dream? To be smart enough to save the world, and get the accolades that go along with it.
His blatant religious proselytizing in his other books, most notably the Alvin Maker series, choked me with its sickly-sweet taint. I enjoyed the series at first because it was well written and fun, but it soon turned into a carousel of reptition. Alvin did and said the same things over and over, Card using him as a hand-puppet to express his Love Thy Neighbor and Turn the Other Cheek platitudes until I was racing through to the end of the novel not out of enjoyment and eagerness to see what happened, but just to be able to put the book down and go wash the veneer of his homophobic Christianity from my hands.
Card is not a saint. He wrote something that we all very much wanted to read; that we were alienated from our peers as children for a reason. There's a destiny waiting for us so we can use these big brains. We were humiliated on the playgrounds in grade school, but we'll show them! Someday!
Card gave us this pipe dream. But it's time to let go of the security blanket, Linus. You're smart, but you don't need a writer to give you a raison d'etre in a science fiction fairy tale.
I've written that media SF has often been a good few decades behind written SF, especially movies. They quote Richard Morgan in the NYTimes article ("That's the past of science fiction you're talking about, . .
The literature is filled with writing by Greg Benford, the 'how to empathize with ordinary deathless people' writer Greg Egan, Ken Macleod, Richard Morgan, Ian Banks, Cory Doctorow , or Charlie Stross. Movies haven't made it past the 70's (Bladerunner, the Matrix) other than perhaps 'Eternal Sunshine' (similar to a few 80's stories), and T.V. shows have only tentatively reached the 80's or early 90's (some Outer Limits and Twighlight Zone episodes). With Star Wars and Star Trek out of the way perhaps there'll be more room for the average media SF to catch up to at least the 80's.
As much as I like his books (at least ones that are not trying to turn me into a drooling mormon) he is a dispicable human and an outrageous bigot:d /index.html l
See
http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/car
and his actual views
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.htm
Those articles will turn you off on that guy.. or at least stop purchasing his books.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
And don't forget the Odyssey. Have you ever seen a "military guy gets revenge on his enemies and slays them all single-handedly" scene in a movie that came anywhere near the one at the end of The Odyssey? Man, when he strings that bow and those jackass suitors realize it's him and then find out all the doors are locked? Fantastic!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Good point. Let's check the Oxford English Dictionary.
The official name for the Mormon church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The subtitle of the Book of Mormon is Another Testament of Jesus Christ (the first being the Bible). Articles of Faith 1, 3, and 4 (which they basically brainwash their children with via ritualized repetition) all claim belief in Jesus Christ as a member of the Godhead and their personal savior.
Ergo, Mormons fit the definition of "Christian".
As you said "There is no need for this to be an issue of opinion. Words have definitions."
(For the record. I'm an ex-Mormon. I was raised one, but left once I actually started thinking about what I was told rather than just accepting things.)
I use to have a crush on Wesley Crusher.
So, does this account replace your old one, or are you still posting as 'CleverNickname'?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
As much as I like his books (at least ones that are not trying to turn me into a drooling mormon) he is a dispicable human and an outrageous bigot:d /index.html l
See
http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/car
and his actual views
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.htm
Those articles will turn you off on that guy.. or at least stop purchasing his books.
(this was originally buried in another thread, but reposting here as OSC is really not a nice guy, so does not surprise me that he would turn on a large segment of his fans.)
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
People slag Star Trek for having every alien be humanoid, but that is deliberate. Roddenberry wanted people to see the humanity in every character.
Personally, I don't watch much Sci Fi because most of it shows a future which sucks. Star Trek shows a future that I want to believe in.
The main point of his entire rant seemed to be that episodic programming with larger character development arcs provides more compelling fiction than programs that start and end at the same place. When Xander is scared for his life and reaches for Willow's hand, it's a lot more compelling if they've gotten near to a relationship, he burned her badly by going with someone else, then they spent the last 3 episodes working their way to the point where they are speaking again. When Bones takes a jab at Spock, it's meaningless because their relationship never changes.
Being John Malkovich was a popular, excellent movie, and while I'd put it more in the category of fantasy than Sci Fi, if you read Card's books the distinction is academic. Plus the characters to go through an immense arc throughout the film, falling in love, falling out of love, changing... evolving as characters in exactly the way that Homer Simpson doesn't. Again, the focus, as in all good Sci Fi, is on the character evolutions.
Smallville isn't the best series ever by a long shot. But like Buffy it is a popular show that opened people's eyes to what can happen when characters evolve across episodes.
Trek did and does follow an antiquated model, and he's right in thinking that it would only continue to do so. Probably the best bit of Trek, the last few seasons of DS9, took place when Paramount's main people were focused on Voyager and allowed a smaller group of people to create a broader story focused more on large story arcs and developments. The best season of Enterprise has been this last one, when multi episode story arcs were plentiful.
Orson's books reflect this thinking, of course. His most popular work, the Ender's series, follows one character along his evolution from a weak abused nobody kid to a reclusive man hiding from unwanted fame from his past, to an old man accepting of his place in the world. And the latest Ender's book takes place in the same time frame as the original, exploring another character who isn't the hero, but who evolves from a lone troubled genius striking out at anyone or anything that might subjugate him, to being a mature, willing second, giving himself over to a man he believes deserves it.
Oddly enough, I've always felt Asimov was at his best in short stories, but even then his characters were undergoing tremendous evolution within the span of several pages.
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